Age effects on attentional blink performance in meditation |
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Authors: | Sara van Leeuwen Notger G Müller Lucia Melloni |
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Institution: | aCognitive Neurology Unit, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University & Brain Imaging Center, Schleusenweg 2-16, 60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany;bMax Planck Institute for Brain Research, Department of Neurophysiology, Deutschordenstraße 46, 60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany;cUniversitätsklinik für Neurologie, Leipziger Str. 44, 39104 Magdeburg, Germany |
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Abstract: | Here we explore whether mental training in the form of meditation can help to overcome age-related attentional decline. We compared performance on the attentional blink task between three populations: A group of long-term meditation practitioners within an older population, a control group of age-matched participants and a control group of young participants. Members of both control groups had never practiced meditation. Our results show that long-term meditation practice leads to a reduction of the attentional blink. Meditation practitioners taken from an older population showed a reduction in blink as compared to a control group taken from a younger population, whereas, the control group age-matched to the meditators’ group revealed a blink that was comparatively larger and broader. Our results support the hypothesis that meditation practice can: (i) alter the efficiency with which attentional resources are distributed and (ii) help to overcome age-related attentional deficits in the temporal domain. |
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Keywords: | Meditation Attention Aging Plasticity |
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